From the editor

After 13 years in this role, this marks the last editorial I will write as editor of The Mennonite. It has been a sacred trust, and I will be forever grateful for the many readers, friends and colleagues who encouraged and challenged me, lovingly, along the way.

In February, I will begin serving part-time as president of the Greencroft Communities Foundation and join the three-person chaplaincy team at Greencroft Goshen and Greencroft Middlebury. Those retirement communities are in Indiana.

When I came to The Mennonite in 2000, Daniel Hertzler, former editor of the Gospel Herald, gave me some prescient advice.

“Publishing a denominational magazine,” Hertzler said, “is a cross between betting on the ponies at a horse race and practicing psychiatry without a license.”

How true! I have been repeatedly surprised by a lack of response to articles I expected would generate reaction and surprised by responses to articles that seemed uncontroversial.

There are also times when a reader’s reaction is so disproportionate to the subject matter that it seems the article touched some deeply painful but unresolved personal issue.

Those surprises will continue as interim editor Anna Groff takes the helm with assistance from associate editor Gordon Houser.

Knowing the work and challenges ahead during a two-year interim period, I am confident this ship is in good hands, even if the sailing will be somewhat rough.

Why rough? As Associated Church Press leaders said in a statement last September, “In recent years, reorganization and strategic repositioning in many denominations in North America have led to the demise of a host of venerable denominational magazines, newspapers and news ser­vices.”

Such periodicals included United Methodist Reporter (May 2013), The Progressive Christian (formerly Zion’s Herald, January 2013), Episcopal Life (2011), Disciples World (2010), United Church News (2009) and The Church Herald (2009).

Fortunately, The Mennonite is in good financial shape, with a solid staff that can take it through the challenges ahead. And they are significant.

Even though more people read what we publish than ever before, the number of readers drawn to our free content online grows as the number of subscribers willing to pay for the print magazine slowly declines.

For example, last December our website set a record with nearly 19,000 “absolutely unique visitors,” which is the term Google Analytics uses. We also continue to see an increase in the number of people signing up for our free electronic magazines (e-zines).

No one in denominational magazine publishing has found a long-term solution to this trend. But the future will include digital content in any viable business plan.

To sort out what this will look like, our board of directors decided to work at the issues during an interim period with Anna Groff.

She is the right person for the job. She manages our website and is leading the process of building a new one. She edits and publishes the e-zines TMail and Meno Acontecer as well as the news section in The Mennonite.

As I say goodbye, I do so with total confidence in the leadership gifts this young woman brings to the church and ask that you encourage and challenge her—lovingly—as she leads this ministry enterprise in the next years.

Farewell and God bless.